Welcome to Barely Legal: The Blog; This blog is run by two recent law school grads, Russ and Mike. Back when we were still law students, this was the most popular law student run blog in the world. Now, who knows what we are or what this blog is. Nevertheless, everything on this blog is uncontroverted fact, and should be interpreted as such.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

JD/MBA

Some things just seem to go together: chocolate and peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly, or pretty much anything and peanut butter. Some things, however, are foisted together for no apparent reason, like the JD/MBA. Or as I like to call it: Dumb and Dumber.

An MBA is basically a brief crash course in Business Administration. Some of you will remember Business Administration as the third most popular major offered on DeVry’s late night TV commercials, after Air Conditioning Repair and Massage Therapy.

When an attorney needs information about a subject matter, let’s say business administration, they don’t go out and get a degree in it. The attorney hires an expert. The attorney then interviews the expert and if they need to communicate that expert’s opinions they use them as an expert witness. You may have seen it done on TV about a million times.

I imagine most JD/MBA interviews go like this:

JD/MBA: Not only can I practice law for your company but I also can balance books, project your finances and manage your people.

Employer: Actually, you’ll be busy with legal work for 70 hours a week like all other JDs, so you wouldn’t have time to do any of that other stuff even if I wanted you to.

JD/MBA: So, I just wasted another year of my life and $50,000 for nothing?

Employer: Yes. It would seem those financial projection skills you learned leave a lot to be desired.

The thing I dislike most about JD/MBA programs is that the pairing really points out how a JD is not a real doctorate program. Even though evidence teaches us otherwise, guilt by association is real and we will all be victims of it.

Let’s face it, JD/MBA programs are just a scam to squeeze more money out of students. I won’t be surprised if they start offering JD/MBA/Magic-Bean-Purchasing-Agent degrees.